Which services had emergency parachutes that used the Wind Blast handles?

What was the terminology for the cylindrical sleeve that was attached over the end of the ripcord housing, covering the clips that held the handle in place.. These were, as I recall from a sport rig I owned, about 2" in length and were held in place by a setscrew.

I believe what you are referring to is a "knob guide". They were in use on AF and Navy back and seat parachute and interestedly enough, are still used today by the AF at least on bailout parachutes.

See attached pics and I hope this helps.

In reply to:

(from Darkwing)Interesting. I owned a blast handle rig in the old days, and was never aware of the knob guide. By the way, I liked the blast handle at the time and even now don't think they are a bad way to do it.

Thank you for the info and the pics. This, indeed is indeed the componint I was inquiring about.

The rig I had was a crossbow piggyback with a cut-down main container. It had blast handles on both main and reserve, both of which had guide nobs in place. As per the custom of the time, the post was drilled out of the reserve handle, but this, uncustomarily, was not done on the main handle.

It is noteworthy that I NEVER had any difficulty pulling the main (undrilled post and all). It was reported that pulls not in-line with the ripcord housing could cause the handle to hang-up. I also know that the knob-guides were rarely seen on sport rigs.

My suspicion is that the knob-guide effectively added a lever arm that stuck out from the fist when pulling and twisted the handle so it was inline with the end of the ripcord housing, even if the pull was off-axis.

Based on this, I must conclude that a guide nob was necessary for optimal function and should have been used on all blast handle ripcords, main or reserve.

As I posted elsewhere, I really liked the blast handles. They were always where you expected them to be and they were less likely to snag on something. It is a shame that they have been banned.

As I posted elsewhere, I really liked the blast handles. They were always where you expected them to be and they were less likely to snag on something. It is a shame that they have been banned.

Although 99.99% of skydivers and riggers don't care, it is an interesting question, whether they are still banned.

The Aussies have an '85 rigging bulletin that discourages their use and requires that all blast handles in sport use have the center post drilled. (RAC No. 501 Rev. A)

The Brits have blast handles in a long list of old stuff that is "banned or strongly recommended not to be used". (That includes side pull belly mount reserve handles, so in typical BPA fashion they get pretty strict.)

Canada has Technical Bulletin #30 from 1987 saying "The T&SC recommends that CSPA Riggers do not pack any reserve container with an Anti-Wind Blast Handle or with synthetic (not metal) ripcord handles of any type." Nothing against use on mains.

I've seen it. The problem I have with the blast handle issue is that there were incident reports, but was there any serious investigation of the problem? Were there inherent problems in the blast handle itself, or were the issues related to manner in which it was used and rigged on sport parachute systems?

If you don't know the real nature of the problem, how can you remedy it? The easy way is to just make the problem go away by summary judgement. But if the easy way out becomes the habitual first choice, as it can easily do, you will end up creating more problems than you solve.